41 
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f 




■THE- 



CENTURY AND THE SCHOOL, 



READ BEFORE THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, 
AT ATLANTA, GA, 



-BY- 



i 



!F\ LOUIS SOLDATV, 

Principal Normal School of St. Louis, Mo. 



SALEM, OHIO : 

OFFICE OF OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY. 
1882. 



-THE- 



CENTURY AND THE SCHOOL, 



READ BEFORE THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, 
AT ATLANTA, GA., 



-BY- 



IT 1 . LOUIS SOLDAN, 

Principal Normal S&fmhl of &t. Louis, Mo. 




SALEM, OHIO : 

OFFICE OF OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY. 

1882. 



ft 






THE CENTUKY AND THE SCHOOL. 



We are told by philologists that our forefathers in making the myths 
■which we find in their poetry and legends were wiser than they knew. 
In these myths modern philology has discovered wonderful truths. 
It professes to know more about Apollo than the Greeks, more about 
Jupiter than the Eomans, and more about Thor than the Saxons of the 
North. When it is thus the practice to invest ancient myths with 
modern meaning, we may be allowed to select one of these myths for 
the purpose of this paper, and try to find in ancient lore the fore- 
shadowing of a modern view. 

There is no story more prevalent in northern mythology, than that of 
little beings, gifted with extraordinary powers. In the tales of Scotland 
and of old England the little Brownies play an important part. They 
sweep the floor which the servant has neglected, they do the work which 
the lazy mortal has forgotten to do. They are the working spirits, the 
little active principles. So in the mythology of the Norse peoples, the 
giants and Gods, powerful in stature and deeds, seem in reality depend- 
ent for their weapons, armor, and all their worldly goods upon the 
diligence of those little dwarfs, who are the types of wisdom and indus- 
try. To their skill the gods and giants owe the arms by which alone they 
retain power and sway. And yet these little beings live removed from 
the eyes of the world and from the light of day. In modest retirement 
they are the guardians of the highest treasures of mountain and mine. 
In the darkness of the caverns they toiled and labored, they ply the 
hammer and make for Odin the never-missing spear, for Thor the terrible 
hammer, they build for Freya the free ship, and they weave the golden 
hair of the goddess of the earth. 

If we are allowed to carry into this story an explanation of our own, it 
seems as if the ancient myth foreshadowed a discovery of our century, 
namely, the truth that the events of nature and of the world are not 
brought about by Titanic revolutions, but are the result of the silent and 
persistent forces which work quietly and unobservedly in every atom 
and cell. Apparently insignificant processes which surround us every- 
where and at every moment, are sufficient to account for all the changes 
in nature. The little forces shape the world, and not the gigantic revo- 
lutions of which former theories spoke. 

This recognition of the power of the silent and little forces of nature, 
which work out of sight, in the depths of the world, is the view peculiar 
to the science of our century. Our century has discovered these little 
powers and observed their work in nature. While former theories saw 
in the surface of the earth the result of great revolutions and sudden 
upheavals, the science of our century has found that all these forms of 
geological life are due to the steady work of forces which surround us 



„4— 

and which we can observe in their activity every moment. It is the 
little and insignificant cause which creates and sustains the great and 
gigantic phenomenon. Before the examining glance of science, whatever 
is great dissolves itself, and appears to be the work of what seems small and 
powerless. Those bold cliffs and mountains which protect the South of 
England against the fury of the sea, appear to the inquisitive eye as untold' 
myriads of little shells which in slow accumulation have formed mount- 
ains. Society too has its little powers which, compared with the gigantic 
interests of modern times, with politics, commerce, and the wheel-works 
of manufacture and transit and trade, appear insignificant and small, but 
which nevertheless in modest retirement drive the wheels and move the 
loom of time. Among these small powers, in which our century has 
recognized a creative and preservative power which supports the State 
and sustains social life, there is none humbler but at the same time more 
significant than the school. Like those little mythical beings of the old 
Norse story who wrought the arms by which the giants of the world 
maintained their sway, the school creates for the State the arms against 
barbarism and crime, the school in the opinion of our century, builds 
the throne on which liberty can safely rest, it covers the earth with the 
golden harvest of the peaceful arts. Like the Brownies of northern 
mythology who were the guardians of great treasures, education and the 
school are the guardians of the great treasures of humanity, of knowl- 
edge, morality, and law. 

According to the view which our century takes of education, the school 
should not only be the guardian of the ethical treasures of mankind, 
but also the servant of the aims and the objects of the times. 

All callings have a narrowing influence on those that follow them, and 
the teacher is not free from the narrowing influence of his humble voca- 
tion. "In narrow work the mind itself grows narrow" is a true saying. 
Too easily we cling to what is traditional and old and a time-honored 
custom, and it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves of the old 
saying of the Roman teacher: "Do not educate the child for the school 
but for life!" It is a just demand that the school should move along 
with the progressive movement of society at large. Thus it appears that 
the school should be guided by the wants of society ; but the features of 
society change more quickly than the waves of the river, and never more 
than in this age of quick growth and quick decay. The work of adapt- 
ing the school to the changing demands of the times is not an easy one. 
But that system of schools which does not move and develop with the 
motion of the times, is not carried along on the fresh wave of public 
opinion, and loses its place in the sympathies of the people. To keep 
pace with the development of society and science, to assimilate what is 
new, without discarding what is good in things traditional and time-hon- 
ored, to appreciate new demands and new interests without injustice to 
what is old and tried, this is the task of that education which means to 
be what it ought to be, namely, the true servant of the noblest aims of 
our century. The pupil shall enter life not with his face turned back- 
ward, like one who has been trained in the lore of the past only, not like 
a wanderer in the bewildering mazes of an unintelligible, unknown world,. 



—5— 

Taut rather as a new reaper steps into the field to engage in work for which 
his education has endowed him with taste and ability. Thus, growing 
upon the fresh soil of the century the school sends thousands of strong 
roots into the life of the nation and sucks new power out of the throb- 
bing heart of the century. Those epochs in education are the greatest, 
in which the school has been roused from dreams of the past, and linked 
afresh to the bright life of the present. The glorious rise of the school 
during the time of the reformation, began with the moment that Latin 
was displaced from its universal position in all the schools, and the ver- 
nacular was taught to the people to enable them to read the newly-trans- 
lated Bible. What seemed to many the ruin or the giving up of the 
characteristic task, the teaching of Latin, was in reality the beginning 
of the modern era in education, during which schools have grown so 
wonderfully that no mediaeval mind could conceive of such a growth, 
and no historical parallel can be found. 

The next powerful impulse was given to the school by Bacon when he 
confronted the humanistic book-wisdom, and the Aristotelian authority 
by emphasizing the neglected study of nature. With the moment that 
Pestalozzi's spirit conceived the idea of educating the masses, an idea 
ignored by Locke as well as by Rousseau, with the moment that Pesta- 
lozzi wedded the school to the life of the nation, in which we live at 
present, the new era in education began. The school of our days will 
not lose anything by embracing fully and unreservedly the spirit of our 
century. The influence of the school is powerful and stirring in propor- 
tion as it conceives and recognizes the noblest aims and endeavors of 
the century and tries to teach in accordance with them. Not only usage 
and traditional methods, but also reason and progress should regulate 
•school institutions. 

" Custom calls me to it — 

"What custom wills, in all things should we do it, 
"The dust of antique time would lie unswept, 
" And mountainous error be too highly heaped 
"For truth to overpeer. 

Thus then, our century demands that the school be the guardian of the 
'best aspirations of the times, but it should also be the servant of those 
interests which do not belong to any particular time, but to all times 
namely, the general ethical interests of humanity. 

Our century deserves that the school be subservient to it, for no other 
age has, even approximately, recognized the value of education as much 
as the present, or expressed its appreciation in such an active way, by 
the establishment and support of the most wonderful educational sys- 
tems. 

" He who controls the education of a nation " — says Leibnitz, " controls 
its future." The assurance of the duration and perpetuity of free in- 
stitutions, lies in the possibility of educating a nation so as to make the 
masses with whom ultimately the government of a country rests, intel- 
ligent and responsible rulers in their own affairs. 

There is probably no other institution which has been made so exten- 
sively the subject of attacks and abuse, as the school. It has been 



—6— 

blamed for educating too much and for educating too little. It has been 
censured on account of not doing enough to prevent crime and criticized' 
for not doing enough to produce wealth. It has been arraigned as an 
enemy of physical health of youth. Every class of specialists has- 
demanded that the school should do something for the promotion of its 
art, and has denounced it for not doing enough. In all these things it is- 
evident that much is expected from the school. But even in the unreas- 
onable demands made upon it, there is an element not entirely unsatis- 
factory to the friends of education, namely, that all these demands imply 
an almost boundless confidence in the power of education. It is reason- 
able to suppose that the school can do much, but it is foolish to imagine 
that it can do everything. The century has great faith in the efficiency 
and power of the school. In all the evils which beset the body politic,, 
the school is expected to furnish some remedy which will cure or prevent 
them. 

This belief is characteristic of the century, and we do not find fault 
with it, even when it speaks in exaggeration of what the school can do 
for the state, and when it forgets that there are many educational factors- 
besides the school, that life, family, civil vocations, the press, the pulpit 
are just as important and responsible factors in education as the school. 
Neglects and errors in education cannot and should not be charged to the 
school alone. 

There are two distinct classes of demands, however, which the century 
makes upon the school. The one is, that the school shall be in harmony 
with the practical aims and with the spirit of the times; and the other,, 
that it shall help to guard those interests which are as old as the human 
race itself, namely, the ethical interests which alone constitute — make or 
render man a civilized being, and make uprightness and charity part of 
his nature. The demands of the century on the school are then, first, of 
a practical, and second of an ethical character. 

If the practical demand is that the school should accord with the spirit 
of the century, it becomes necessary to inquire what the spirit of the 
century is, so that we know according to what standard the school should 
shape its course. 

Every age has its own features which appear strongly marked in its- 
history, art, science, religion, politics, and society ; and, as the features 
of a human being change and are ennobled in the course of a thoughtful 
life, so the features and the aspect of the times change with each newly 
discovered truth, with each world-historical deed. The eternal fountain 
out of which the deeds and thoughts of a nation arise wells up forever. 
The poet says, "Ever over the path of mankind flashes, like lightning, 
eternal truth." And thus the features of the time are subject to perpet- 
ual changes. 

May we then be allowed to draw, with a few lines, an image of the 
times, as they appear to us, without ignoring the truth that the times are 
not always as they appear to the painter; remembering, however, that 
much of the portrait depends on the artist who draws it. The one may 
paint his century with the brush of Tintoretto, with bright lights and 
deep shadows, while the other may portray his century in a picture after 



— 7— 

Eembrandt's fashion ; the head and brow radiant with light, but the 
heart covered with black shadow and gloom. 

In the beginning of the last century American life was still knit 
together with the life of England ; and the history of Europe was that 
of America, and therefore in considering European history for a moment' 
we consider what was then American history as well. 

In the latter half of the last century, mankind seemed to rise and to 
shake off the fetters of medievalism, which still clung to it! limbs and held 
it in a state of social and political bondage. The dormant energy of the 
race awoke ; an era of new activity sprang suddenly into existence. In 
politics, in science, in art, a new epoch began. It was a revival which 
was perhaps more transitory, but certainly not less important than the 
great revival of the 14th and 15th centuries. As in the earlier revival 
of learning, when art broke with the conventional and byzantine models, 
it seized again upon the classical art-forms of antiquity, so, in the revival 
of liberty, the last century resuscitated the political forms of antiquity, 
the idea of the Eepublic was revived, and into this old form the century 
poured its new life. 

Yorktown, 100 years ago, ended forever the dream of a monarchy in 
America, and the success of the new state in its struggle reanimated the 
ideas of liberty in the old world. New America and New France arose. 
Fresh light shone forth . from the fields of science and art. As on one 
side were the political, so on the other, were the scientific systems remod- 
elled and re-created. The French revolution brought about a new order 
of society, French science produced a new classification of the kingdoms 
of nature, French legislation gave us the only thoroughly modern code of 
laws, French commerce adopted a new division of weights and measures. 
All this manifests the strong revolutionary character of the period. In 
the department of letters the same strong pulsation was felt, and the 
heart of the world throbbed again with a great period of literary and 
intellectual life. The great names of this movement tell its history. In 
philosophy, Condillac, Voltaire, D'Alembert, La Mettrie, Hume, 
Kant ; in literature, Beaumarchais, Diderot, Marmontel, Montesquieu, 
Eousseau ; in science, Buffon, Daubenton Brisson, Geoffroy St. Hil- 
aire, Cuvier, Jussieu, Biot, Saussure, Watt, Franklin, Jenner. 

It is hardly necessary to say, that this revival of the scientific and 
literary spirit was not confined to France alone. The Italian Canova, 
for instance, the Dane Thorwaldsen, the greatest sculptors of modern 
times, Goethe and Schiller, the great poets of Germany, belong to the 
same period. This time of almost feverish activity in science and politics 
was followed by decades of complete prostration caused by the fearful 
wars of the Napoleonic episode. A period of languid reaction in all the 
fields of intellectual work ensued. England, after 1815, rested exhausted 
and almost broken from its gigantic but futile efforts against the Amer- 
ican colonies, or the United States, and against France. 

France, whose revolutionary arms had over-run all Europe, had fallen 
into the hands of a soldier of- genius, whom the combination of all the 
powers of Europe had dethroned and chained to the rocks of St. Helena. 
And now began throughout Europe a time of political oppression. The 



kings of the old world had called on their people, to drive out the French 
conquerors, hut they soon became afraid of the spirit they had conjured 
up. They suppressed every manifestation of popular political activity. 
The press was shorn of its rights and deprived of its remaining freedom. 
All Europe was exhausted and rested languidly. The era of progress, so 
suddenly begun, found as sudden an end in a period of political decay 
which extended through the first half of the nineteenth century. The 
hope of humanity had fled across the Atlantic. America had separated 
her fate from that of the older countries, and was the only oasis of free- 
dom in a universal desert of tyranny. While Europe had broken with 
the free political traditions of the eighteenth century, and was uprooting 
them with merciless fury, they were cherished and put into practice in 
America. The history of the United States forms a quiet contrast to this, 
in the growth of the noblest ideas which the revival of liberty had 
brought forth in Europe. 

Literature gave evidence of this sudden downfall. The struggle against 
the existing order of things in society and law, was vividly depicted in 
the productions of the leading writers of this period. Highwaymen 
and corsairs became ideal types in fiction and prose. Byron in England, 
Alfred de Musset in France, Heine and Lenau in Germany, and perhaps 
Wordsworth, whose poetry turned away from man and society and glori- 
fied nature, were the representative names of the literature of this 
period of political sloth, inactivity, and stagnation. A kind of apathy 
had taken possession of the European mind, and the literature of this 
period has not unaptly been called the literature of world-despair. The 
more active elements of the European races turned their back to the 
land of brutal oppression and found homes in the valleys and prairies of 
the great republic. The era of indifference gave rise even to a new 
school of philosophy. Kant's school, represented after his death by 
Hamilton, Comte and others — which had arrived at the conclusion that 
there could not be much certainty about external things any way, — and 
the Hegelian school with its encouraging optimism was followed by the 
dreary school of Schopenhauer who saw in death and rest the only true 
happiness of man. The political atmosphere was stifling; the govern- 
ments were leagued against their peoples. But, what was invulnerable 
to attack was not safe against aspersion. Satire and scepticism, Punch 
and Thackeray, took their place in the literature of the day and in the 
art of the period. Inactivity became a political doctrine. A kind of 
ethical materialism arises in refined society which seeks to ameliorate 
the emptiness of existence by sensuous enjoyment. 

While this was the drift of the surface-culture, a fresh under-current 
gradually but steadily welled up from the deepest heart of the people, 
and a wonderful wave from economic and social springs led to a regener- 
ation of public life. Creative power, of which governments seemed 
devoid, still lived in the sinews and marrow of our civilization, and it 
burst forth through the channel of the industrial activities and invigorated 
afresh the old world. Practical life lightly blew away the cobwebs of 
the literature and metaphysics of quietism. The era of indifference 
came to a sudden end, when a new revolution, like an electric shoek, 



— 9— 

passed over the world in 1848. Thirty years of political commotion 
followed, during which great nations like Italy and Germany sprang into 
existence, and the noble new republic of France was established in the 
midst of unspeakable difficulties. During all this time the star of our 
republic had risen higher in the western skies, and growing in splendor 
until it outshone all other constellations, dazzled the eyes of the world. 
A people had risen out of nothing to rank as the first nation of the earth 
The depression of the old empires served only to raise the new empire 
higher. The miseries of Europe were the prosperity of America. Each 
act of oppression, each new revolution choked in blood had thrown 
myraids of strong men and women on the shores of the republic. This 
period of decomposition and destruction of the old world, was an 
unceasingly creative era for the United States. Here a continuous, 
peaceful growth had matured the political ideas which the last century 
had taught, and on whose destruction and up-rooting the European gov- 
ernments had wasted their energies. Here, out of separated colonies a 
confederation of states arose. It was the era of a more perfect union which 
culminated in the creation of the United States. A process of unification 
had begun, and its first stage went on through sixty years of the nine- 
teenth century, during which time, in the fermentation of political agita- 
tion, the disintegrating questions arose to the surface, ready to be taken 
off. Up to the time of the civil war, the nation was still divided by the 
incompatible systems of slave labor and competitive work, and by an hon 
est diversity of opinion in regard to constitutional provisions. But these 
distinctions having been removed by the results of the war, an arbitra- 
tion honestly and conclusively accepted by all sections of our country, a 
new era has now commenced, and we may say it boldly, — although the 
feeling of the sore may remain for a while after the wound has fully 
been healed, — that the era of the past twenty years has put in place 
of what the Constitution calls a more perfect union of the states, the most 
perfect union of South and North, a union which will last forever because 
it is now based on a community of interests. The past history of Amer- 
ica, more wonderful than a fairy tale, is but "an earnest of what shall 
be." We stand just at the beginning of the most brilliant part of the 
new century, and already we see the process of unification going on and 
completing itself in a thousand ways. What a wonderful history was 
ours, even while the land was divided in itself ! What untold possibil- 
ities are there in the future now when South and North have the same 
hope, the same aspiration, and mingle their energy in one mighty 
current ! 

Before the beginning of this era, of which twenty years have elapsed, 
one might have drawn a line across the continent and said: "Here ends the 
community of interests ; here is the North and there is the South ; here 
is agriculture and there is manufacture and commerce; here is black, 
there is white labor ; here are emigrants, there are slaves ; here is public, 
there is private education." But twenty years of the era of complete unifi- 
cation have passed and where is this line of demarkation now? It has 
vanished in the quick process which now is forming the most perfect 
union of all times. Already it is impossible to designate the South as an 



—10— 

exclusive agricultural and the North as the exclusive manufacturing 
division. Look about you in this great city of Georgia. Look at the 
magnificent homes of the citizens that have risen out of the ruin and 
desolation of war ; look at the stores filled with the treasures of Southern 
workmanship, and at the factories in their restless labor, at the streets 
crowded with the vehicles of commerce, and you will see that the South 
has taken hold of the problems of the new Era. North or South, it is 
the same people, the same characteristic energy. 

Already it is impossible to draw the line between North and South and 
to say : public schools here, private schools there. Much remains to be 
done yet, but, on the other hand there is no feature of the last twenty 
years that calls for more sincere admiration than the noble work done 
by thelSouth to educate her people, both white and black. 

The political features in the history of the century, great as they are, 
brilliant as they appear, are after all, only details. The spirit and essence 
of our century lies not in the great political actions of the age, not in the 
pomp and splendor of war, but finds its motive powers and levers rather 
in the quiet shop of the artisan, in the busy counting-room of the mer- 
chant, and in the retired laboratories of science. By the invention and 
perfection of machines the labor of the artisan and mechanic has lost its 
old form. The production of and manufacture of articles for the needs 
of human society, has experienced almost infinite expansion. The con- 
stant cooperation of many hands necessitated by the new form of pro- 
duction, and on the other hand the desire to facilitate the exchange of 
the multitude of products, has led, with other causes, to the incompara- 
bly rapid growth of cities in Europe and America, and new problems for 
legislation and education have been created by city life. 

Production on a vast scale requires also extensive means of transporta- 
tion, and therefore the development of the latter keeps pace with the 
steadily increasing growth of factory work. The new means of transpor- 
tation stand in the closest connection with the growth of manufacture, 
for without the machine labor of our century and its mass of productions, 
without the involved necessity of instant and extensive distribution of 
the manufactured articles, neither railroad nor telegraph could exist. The 
limit of the development of the one is the limit of the growth of the 
other. Our century has printing presses Avhich can print, cut, fold, and 
fasten 30,000 sheets per hour, and the invention is capable of further 
development, but the true limit lies in the demand, in the number of 
readers or subscribers. It is useless to manufacture articles by the 
million which are demanded by the hundred only. This mass produc- 
tion which is characteristic of our century presupposes vastly increased 
consumption. The existence of countless factories and machines is in 
itself a proof of the fact of increased consumption. The enormously 
increased rate of production is intelligible only on the presupposition 
that each individual human being enjoys a greater share of those things 
which make life pleasant. If it is true that the possibility of civilization 
depends on a certain amount of luxury, and that no nation can make any 
progress in the former unless its labor has procured for it wealth and 
luxury, it follows that in a period like ours, where the individual com- 



—11— 

niands more wealth, greater comfort, civilization and refinement can 
spread more widely and become the attributes of the masses of the peo- 
ple instead of remaining the privilege of the few. Of these characteristics 
of the century the school must take cognizance. In the past period of 
individualized labor each mechanic worked for himself, independent of 
all his fellow-workmen. The article made in the shop received its whole 
form, from the raw material to its finished state through the same hand. 
For this reason each workman had to be trained so as to master the 
whole process ; — the mode of production which our century has invented 
demands extreme division of labor. A piece of work passes through 
many hands before it is completed. The individual worker no longer 
needs the knowledge of the whole process, but skill in a small part only 
of the process. It has become easier to learn a trade than it was formerly, 
but, for the same reason, the workman is less sure of retaining his posi- 
tion. In this complex system of divided labor each individual becomes- 
dependent on the other, and individual independence in work has disap- 
peared. 

The new mode of production gives to labor the character of restless- 
ness. The individual must do his work quickly and hand it over to the 
waiting hands of his fellow-workman, or the movement of the whole 
chain will be interrupted. The golden, comfortable easy time of the 
artisan of the past era, the pleasant, slow rythm of rest and work has- 
disappeared, driven away by the whir of spindle and spool. Rip Van 
Winkle would wait in vain to-day for master tailor and master shoe- 
maker to accompany him to the linden tree before the inn for their 
Monday-morning potion. The romance of rest with intervals of work, 
the romance of easy individual labor belongs to the past. In our century 
each man must labor as one of the grand army of workers, and obey the 
commands of his calling at all times, at all hours. If he wants to work 
at all, he must move in the strictly circumscribed course, and with the 
regularity and precision of a wheel in a never-resting, huge machine. 

The feverish, restless motion which machine labor requires has exerted 
an influence on the mind which extends beyond the province of manu- 
facture and commerce. It has marked the whole age with its character- 
istics, so that all the callings of peace and war bear the stamp of highest 
strain and energetic haste. The other characteristic of the century, 
namely, the rapidity and far-reaching impetus of the means of transit, 
has perhaps contributed still more than the changed forms of labor, to- 
give to our century the p3culiar characteristics of which we have spoken. 
For railroads and steamships and telegraph and postal facilities do not 
serve for the distribution of material wealth merely, they also commu- 
nicate and distribute intellectual treasures and spread and scatter human 
sympathy and thought all over the world. The peaceful victories and 
conquests of mankind in trade and commerce, the inventions of genius, 
the wisdom and folly of political experiments are daily communicated by 
telegraph and press to all the cultured people of the earth. They also 
serve the ends of universal justice : the wicked tremble when they hear 
of crime denounced and punished ; when they hear of the vindicated 
majesty of the law ; — and noble hearts beat higher when they see that 



—12— 

humanity, without distinction of language or race, defends and admires 
what is good and just. The sufferings of a nation, of a country find a 
thousand tongues and a responsive echo in the help of distant lands. 

Travelling and the facilitated communication by letter, the press, the 
telegraph educate man's political sense by teaching him the political 
methods of other states. Nations become acquainted with each other, 
and discover qualities and interests which they possess in common. The 
existence of the American republic is a constant lesson and invitation to 
the nations of the earth, and France has profited by it in our own time. 
In no former age has the cause of self-government experienced such 
an advance as in our day. 

Our century has given to liberty a new foundation. On the basis of 
economic interests modern civil freedom has arisen and become strong. 

As a subordinate result of the perfection of the means of communica- 
tion, it deserves to be mentioned that the stable or localized character of 
the civilization of former centuries has suffered considerable change. 
Nations intermingle, they see and know more of each other than for- 
merly. To these characteristics of our century, our own country owes 
much of its wonderful growth. An event unheard of in all history 
begins and continues through the century, inaugurated by the leveling, 
equalizing tendencies of the 18th century. From all the parts of Europe 
a mighty stream of all races and tongues issues forth and pours its waves 
into the prairies and valleys of the new continent, and with marvelous 
rapidity they form a new nation, with sharply defined national charac- 
teristics; a nation welded together so indissolubly by the cohesive forces 
of free institutions, that even a terrible civil war cannot sever it. In 
former ages a small fraction of mankind was called the floating popula- 
tion. To-day the name may be given in a certain sense to almost the 
whole world. The individual no longer knows with absolute certainty 
that he will finish his days in this or that town. Not many persons 
to-day will resemble Kant, the philosopher, in this respect, who never 
in his life went twenty miles beyond the limits of the little city in which 
he was born. 

I have attempted, as far as the narrow limits of my ability and the 
allotted space of time would allow, to draw a picture of the century in 
which we live. "We cannot withdraw from its influence. Goethe says : — 
'" As if driven by invisible spirits, the sun-horses of the times run away 
with the light vehicle of our individual fate ; and nothing remains for us 
but to grasp the reins with undaunted energy and, guiding to the right 
and to the left, to turn the wheels from rocks and precipice. Whither 
we go — who knows? Why, we hardly know whence we came." 

It remains for us to consider how the school may be made servicable 
to the spirit of the century. The demands of the present period are not 
to be taken as substitutes for the ethical and generally human aims of 
the school of all times, but rather as their complement. The latter must 
not be contradicted by the former, for the ethical aims are of imperisha- 
ble and everlasting value. The education of the child to truth, virtue, 
humanity, to charity, and manly strength, aspires to aims as eternal and 
immutable as the stars above. But to these ethical aims the demands of 



—13— 

the century are added. They are not new, but the old demands have 
become more pointed, more intense, and the tasks have been raised to a 
higher power. 

Our age is an age of effort, work, and labor. The activity of the school 
is therefore directed towards a double task. The imparting of knowl- 
edge, and the formation of a habit of unremitting, steady industry. No- 
principle needs more thorough inculcation than that : " I will do what I 
ought to do." Harmony between duty and will is the basis of moral 
culture and of individual happiness. Not only skill in his work, but 
love for labor and activity should be the gift of the school to the young 
being When he enters upon his path in life, if he is to find there satisfac- 
tion and happiness. In former epochs the aim of the civil education of 
the mechanic or artisan in his craft was the adaptation to and training 
for a special trade or calling, and the method was to lead him to isolated, 
independent work. The culture of our century demands work with 
others. Its principle is no longer independence, but interdependence. 
In the place of the knowledge of the whole process, the condition for 
excellence now is the utmost manual skill and dexterity in the detail. 
Formerly man completed the work and the tool was his assistant, now 
the machine performs the task and man helps it. Formerly his knowl- 
edge of the craft afforded to the workman protection against being pushed 
out of his place ; now, in some trades the process can be learned by a 
tyro in a few weeks or days. Not unfrequently trades disappear alto- 
gether when a new machine has made them superfluous. Formerly the 
country boy might be trained exclusively for country life and the city 
boy for the city. Now, no certainty of future occupation can be inferred 
from present position. 

These conditions the new school must consider. When the special 
trade no longer affords any security of continuous employment, a more 
comprehensive and more thorough schooling can impart to the boy greater 
powers of adaptation, and open to him a wider field. Machine labor has 
never lessened the value of intelligence and of steady character. For 
the very reason that the mechanical, spiritless work is done by fettered 
nature herself, the intelligent human power is enhanced in value. With 
every new machine, intelligent directive power becomes more indispen- 
sable, since by bungling or stupid labor the danger is multiplied to 
immense loss. The further the abilities of man are developed, the greater 
is the field in which he can choose a vocation. Hoav many fields of labor, 
to mention a single illustration, are opened to the boy by a knowledge of 
a single study, that of drawing, which without such knowledge w T ould 
remain closed to him. 

School education, then, which does not merely educate the memory, 
but also the senses and the hand, increases the adaptability to the more 
stringent conditions of existence. Not so much the mass and quantity 
of things know T n form the test of a good school, as the strength and skill 
of hand and eye, of judgment and will. The things taught are means, 
not ends. 

The century demands that the school should work for life. The 
changes made in the most progressive school-systems, as for instance the 



—14— 

introduction of drawing, of the manual training of the kindergarten 
and its cultivation of the senses, all these innovations give evidence of 
the responsive tendency of the school and of the teaching profession to 
do justice to reasonable demands. It is both unwise and unjust in criti- 
cising the schools to dwell exclusively on what ought to be done, and to 
ignore the great things already accomplished. Enough, it is true, re- 
mains to be done by school and teacher, and may the day never come 
when professional self-sufficiency thinks that our schools cannot be per- 
fected. But the fact that there are things that have not been accomplish- 
ed by the school is rather a basis for hope than for criticism. 

" Labor with what zeal we will, 

Something still remains undone, 
Something uncompleted still, 
Waits the rising of the sun." 

Widened and extensive intelligence, — narrow and inte nsive activity , 
contact and sympathy with universal interests, — and devotion to the 
special vocation are the peculiar conditions of our century's life. The 
former teach man to find his place in life, the latter how to fill it. The 
school is carried along by this current. That flaunting wisdom which knows 
a little of everything and nothing.'well is worthless — " of all things a little, 
but one thing well " is a much better principle. The school must refuse 
to teach more than can be taught well. But, since the whole field of 
science cannot be grasped even in its elements, it remains the task of the 
school to fix its attention on those things which may be well learned by 
the child. The former mountebank-systems of teaching, which shouted 
in street and market how many things they could teach and which spread 
over everything, were shallow in all things. The principle of school ed- 
ucation is depth and thoroughness in a few things, and then if there 
is time, general knowledge. Man may study a multitude of things, 
but one thing and if it were the smallest, he should know well. In re- 
gard to the selection of the subjects the decision rests on the ques- 
tion what is most important for the life of the day and for the life of 
humanity. In one thing that is thoroughly grasped, the mind seizes the 
whole world. " That teacher " says Goethe, " who understands how to 
present a single noble deed, a single good poem, so as to rouse the child's 
feeling performs more than one who teaches a whole series of lower 
forms of nature by shape and name ; for the whole result is what we may 
know without all this trouble; namely, that man bears in himself more 
perfectly and more uniquely than all other beings, the image of God. 
The individual may be at liberty to busy himself with what attracts him, 
what he delights in, or what he considers useful, but the proper study of 
humanity is man." 

The school should be of service to the nation also. Without intermis- 
sion, year after year multitudes of emigrants arrive at our shores. The 
parents speak a hundred tongues, the child soon speaks but one, the lan- 
guage of his country. To each child the school gives a new tongue, to 
each home it sends a youthful interpreter of American life and institu- 
tions. The school is building up the nation. The child that has gone 
through a public school is an American, no matter where he first saw the 



—15 — 

light of the sun. Thus language, in all its forms, becomes the most 
important study of the school. It contains the key to all things, human 
and divine. 

There is another demand of the nation on the school. Lessons of 
history should be taught and taught not simply as chronological curios- 
ities, but as truths appealing to thought and to rouse and train patriotic 
feelings in the young mind. 

Since the school is to prepare for life, both subject-matter and method 
of instruction should be living and real. The printed page is and ever 
will be a great medium for the conveying of information, but it is not 
the only medium. Besides mastering the printed page, the child Ehould 
learn how to derive information from the greatest of all sources of infor- 
mation, greater even than books, namely, the world without and the mind 
within. Words remain empty caskets if left without a knowledge of 
things, which the child may gain by using his senses and by cultivating 
his power of observation. Things then should be studied, as far as the 
nature of the subject allows, and not merely their weak reflection in 
books. Without sense- training and the knowledge of things, words have 
but a dream-like existence. The school must not be merely a reading- 
room or recitation room, but must present, both in its selection of lessons 
and its apparatus a piece of reality and life. 

In regard to methods of teaching, our century has firmly established 
the principle of self-activity and industry. The pupil cannot be inde- 
pendent, he is a child and needs guidance. He cannot be allowed to 
have his own way always. Nothing is more apt to weaken the child 
than the favorite maxim, to let the child alone, to let him do what he 
pleases. He must struggle for freedom from his own whims and caprices. 
He must learn to do what he should do. On the other hand, the boy 
must become independent intellectually, and, for this reason, he must 
learn to find knowledge in the objective world by his own eyes. Knowl- 
edge must be conquered, in order to be wholly possessed. The teacher 
may guard the pupil against hurtful errors, he may point out to him the 
road to knowledge, he may lead him, but he must not attempt to carry 
him. "Without the charm of self-activity, even the new toy ceases to be 
of interest to the child. In the process of learning, therefore, the mind 
of the pupil should not be in the attitude of receiving, but rather in that 
of grasping knowledge. Schopenhauer says bluntly, but truly: "Truth 
that is received merely and committed to memory, sticks to man's organ- 
ization like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a wax nose. . . . But 
knowledge gained by one's OTrn thinking resembles the natural limb ; it 
alone belongs to us fully." 

The century has a democratic, equalizing, and harmonizing tendency, 
and the school partakes of it. The increase in the facilities of inter-com- 
munication gradually effaces the external differences between nations, 
and dulls the sense of the individual in regard to these distinctions. 
Here again the school is guided by the spirit of the century. Xo caste, 
no social barriers which separate man from man are recognized in the 
school. The school unites in its precincts the children of the rich and of 
the poor, of all classes of society, of all nationalities and of all creeds; 



—16— 

all receive the same education. Education has become the temple of 
the nation ; all believe in it, all are united in its support; in its walls 
dwells the whole future generation. Everywhere the tendency becomes 
apparent, to efface unreal distinctions, and to make the individual the im- 
age of the noblest features of humanity. The school has become the most 
universal of all human institutions. In all of them there are divisions, 
in it there is none. Education embraces with the same love, Jew and 
Gentile, for it sees the type of humanity in each child. 

We have touched rapidly upon many a question which seemed worthy 
of a more thorough and detailed examination ; and others have slipped 
altogether through the wide meshes of this lecture. But let us, in con- 
clusion, devote a moment to that side of education which no age can 
transform, and no century can alter ; to that side of education which 
does not prepare for the macrocosm of life without, but which seeks to 
build up a world within ; that schooling which educates man not for 
others, but for himself, and which teaches him to find happiness in him- 
self and in his deeds. Religion is taught by church and pulpit, but the 
school cannot remain idle in the work of ethical education. 

The school, it has been said, should educate for life. Man's life, how- 
ever, glitters in double colors. He lives a life within and a life without. 
His eye sees the sun of the world, but deep in his heart rise the stars of 
his own fate. The struggle for existence which life brings with it, is not 
always a physical struggle ; it may be a strife for spiritual treasures, for 
unsullied name and untarnished honor, for ethical existence. 

The deepest soul of man must become the anchoring ground of the 
truth that man's higher nature must not be allowed to suffer in the 
struggle and in the race for gain. Higher than the treasures of the world 
he must learn to esteem justice and truth ; higher than worldly gain the 
love of home and kindred, of neighbor and friend, and faith and fidelity 
to the State. 

These teachings school and family must foster, and engrave them in 
the soul of the child so that they sink deep into the innermost nature of 
the man. The life of man is a struggle for better days towards which 
hope beckons with a smile. All hunt for treasures, which few only find. 
Unmixed happiness is a rare guest in the house of man, but disappoint- 
ment and care come like the days of the year. We cannot escape the 
sorrows of life, for we carry them with us. 

" Behind the rider sitteth dark-faced care, 
And with the sailor sails she through the waves." 

If thus life mingles light and shadow, if happiness cannot be found in 
market and street, education must teach the child to find content and 
happiness where alone they will not flee : — in his own heart. A hand 
ready to help, a contented mind, an appreciation of those treasures that 
are higher than life itself, this is the ethical task which the century 
demands from the school. 



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